German houses, churches and typical streets: Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, has become for Russian filmmakers an ersatz of Europe, unable to shoot in the West due to the sanctions imposed since the Russian assault on Ukraine . The region and its eponymous capital, conquered by the Red Army in 1945, have preserved their characteristic architecture of what was East Prussia, giving a definitely European air to the former Königsberg. Enough to attract directors and producers in need of foreign currency and in search of sets that do not breathe the Soviet Union.
“Shooting in Kaliningrad is very practical: the administration welcomes us with open arms, we pay everything in rubles and the extras speak Russian,” notes Moscow producer Nikita Sapronov, who recently shot the series GDR (GDR in Russian) there. he action takes place in Berlin during the fall of the wall, at the end of 1989. Initially, it was to be shot in Germany. But with the Russian offensive against kyiv, “Europe has practically closed the door in our face,” the producer told AFP, showing himself visibly frustrated. The team fell back on Kaliningrad, reconstructing a section of the Berlin Wall in the city center last spring. “Kaliningrad has perfectly replaced the eastern and western parts of Berlin,” he says, two cities with Germanic and Soviet architecture.
The proliferation of filming in Kaliningrad illustrates the unexpected and relative good health of Russian cinema, despite its isolation from the international cultural scene and the massive departure from the country of executives in the sector, fearing to be mobilized in the army. National production was able to benefit on the one hand from significant state subsidies and on the other hand from the boycott by Hollywood and Europe which freed up to 80% of the Russian market. As a result, twice as many Russian children’s titles were released in 2022 compared to the previous year, Russian films in streaming are up 30% and those on TV by 25%, according to the professional journal Bulletin Kinoprokattchika, even if this production remains essentially confined to Russia.
War in Ukraine: Russian cinema enlisted by propaganda
The state doubled its support for production in 2022 to 14.9 billion rubles, or around 150 million euros. Aid that is part of the strategy displayed by Vladimir Putin to replace imported items – cars, engineering, food but also cinema – with Russian products. And the cinema seems to largely survive thanks to these infusions. The figures for the sector are difficult to specify, but according to the online business newspaper RBK, only one film, a schoolboy comedy, out of the 26 subsidized by the Cinema Fund and released last year was profitable.
Kaliningrad is benefiting in any case from the boom in Russian productions, especially since the region already had experience in this area, already subsidizing filming for five years up to 40%. The town of Jeleznodorojny, the former Gerdauen, thus welcomed in July the shooting of a feature film whose action takes place in 1944 in Eastern Europe.
“These red tiled roofs, these cobbled roads surrounded by trees in the middle of bucolic landscapes, it’s the very last piece of Europe that we have left”, tells AFP not without sadness the decorator of the team, Yulia Makouchina. Curious deja-vu, Kaliningrad had already been, during the Cold War, a filming ground appreciated by Soviet directors when it came to staging the clashes between the Red Army and the Nazis in Europe.
Kaliningrad, Russian bridgehead in Europe
Today, by launching a vast renovation program, the regional administration wants to broaden its range of decorations. Since 2022, “we have been the ultimate European set (of the Russians) and we already receive around ten film crews a year”, proudly tells AFP the local Minister of Culture and Tourism, Andreï Ermak. Advertisements offering training in cinema professions are omnipresent in Kaliningrad and a giant studio is under construction, with the ambition of becoming a “Russian Hollywood on the Baltic”, according to the local press.
The region, however, faces significant logistical challenges, aggravated by the sanctions, the enclave being located more than a thousand kilometers from Moscow, surrounded by members of NATO and the EU. Lithuania thus restricts the land transit of certain goods. Still remains the sea route, longer and more expensive. “Fortunately, the ports of Kaliningrad are ice-free all year round and our transport costs are partially reimbursed,” producer Artyom Soudjan told AFP.
